The Exercise of Prayer⤒🔗

Prayer is one of the exercises of our Christian life that requires more discipline, perhaps, than any other exercise of faith. We confess that “prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness that God requires of us.”¹John Calvin called it “the chief exercise of faith.” It is hardly surprising, then, that prayer occupies one of the longest chapters in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Pastor John Calvin←⤒🔗

Anyone who needs convincing that Calvin had ordinary believers and their daily struggles in mind when he wrote the Institutes needs only to turn to his section on prayer in chapter twenty of Book 3 (3.20). The Institutes actually brim over with evidence that John Calvin was, first of all, a pastor who had a deep love for the sheep of Christ’s flock. To give you a taste, I would like to share with you some of the more striking rules and elements of prayer that he lists. I hope, of course, that you will pick up Calvin’s Institutes someday soon, and mine for yourself the rich and beautiful biblical truths that John Calvin, by God’s grace, helped the church rediscover. ²

A Compiled Guide to Prayer←⤒🔗

• We need to rid ourselves of all cares that make our minds wander when we pray (3.20.4).

• The more difficult we find it to concentrate the more we have to work at it (3.20.5).

• Lifting hands in prayer helps us lift our souls on high (3.20.5; 3.20.16).

• We should not ask any more than God allows (3.20.5).

• Although the Spirit helps us to pray, this is not said “in order that we, favouring our own slothfulness, may give over the function of prayer to the Spirit of God, and vegetate in that carelessness to which we are all too prone” (3.20.5).

• Prayer requires meditation about what we are going to ask (3.20.6).

• We must pray at all times, also when grain and wine abound (3.20.7).

• Prayer demands repentance (3.20.7).

• We must come to the Lord humbly. Daniel’s prayer is a beautiful model of that (Dan 9.18, 19) ³, and is a wonderful example also for congregational prayer (3.20.8).

• Faith must be our guide when we pray (3.20.11).

• Christ intercedes for us when we pray. Calvin provides this quotation from Ambrose: “He is our mouth, through which we speak to the Father; he is our eye, through which we see the Father; he is our right hand, through which we offer ourselves to the Father. Unless he intercedes, there is no intercourse with God either for us or for all the saints” (3.20.21).

Prayer Like Digging for a Treasure←⤒🔗

Calvin compares the exercise of prayer to digging for a treasure: “(We) dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord’s gospel, and which our faith has gazed upon.” (3.20.2) Neglecting prayer is as foolish as ignoring a treasure that we’ve discovered.

To know God as the master and bestower of all good things, who invites us to request them of him, and still not to go to him and not ask of him – this would be of as little profit as for a man to neglect a treasure, buried and hidden in the earth, after it had been pointed out to him (3.20.1).

Public Prayer←⤒🔗

Calvin also helps us to think properly about public prayer. It can be abused through pompous show (3.20.29), but is nonetheless required. The Lord even called his temple, the place of public worship, “the house of prayer” (Isaiah 56:7; Matthew 21:13). Bringing specific requests to the Lord, related to specific needs in the world, the worldwide church, and the local church, also belongs in public worship, where the needs and joys of particular members or families in the congregation should also be remembered before the Lord. ⁴ Having a designated section on the liturgy sheet or in the church bulletin would assist the congregation in establishing their family and personal prayers as an extension of public prayer in church.

Praying from the Heart←⤒🔗

Unless our prayers come from the heart, they are an offence to God.

(T)hey arouse his wrath against us if they come only from the tip of the lips and from the throat, seeing that this is to abuse his most holy name and to hold his majesty in derision” (3.20.31).

The Rich must Pray for God’s Provision, too←⤒🔗

(The) generosity of God is necessary no less for the rich than for the poor; for with full cellars and storehouses, men would faint with thirst and hunger unless they enjoyed their bread through his grace” (3.20.44).

Prayer at Regular Times←⤒🔗

It is ironic that in a culture so bound by the clock, prayer is less and less regular. Calvin maintains that we

should set apart certain hours for this exercise...: when we arise in the morning, before we begin daily work, when we sit down to a meal, when by God’s blessing we have eaten, when we are getting ready to retire” (3.20.50).

We need to learn and maintain this practice, without falling into barren routine or superstition (3.20.50).

Praying without Giving Up←⤒🔗

Where can one find a Christian who has never grown weary of praying? Calvin reminds us how,

in the Psalms we can often see that David and other believers, when they are almost worn out with praying and seem to have beaten the air with their prayers as if pouring forth words to a deaf God, still do not cease to pray (Psalm 22.2)(3.20.51).

Always pray then, child of God, and don’t give up.⁵